299 Days: The Visitors (6 page)

Grant was actually OK with the story getting out about the constable brutality—was that even a term? Let the others at Pierce Point understand that this group of civilian amateurs would rough up a belligerent child rapist.

“We need to get the prisoners out of here and ready for their trials,” Grant said.

“Trials?” Ryan said. “Seriously?” Ryan laughed, looked around at the Team, and said, “You’re kidding, right?”

“No,” Grant said. “What do you propose doing?”

“Well,” Ryan said, trying to figure out how to say what he was thinking. “Well, we hold them until the authorities can come out.” He looked at the Team for approval. They didn’t give it.

“When might that be?” Bobby asked. “I mean, I’m not trying to be a dick, Ryan, but when will the authorities be out here and able to have a normal trial?”

Ryan thought for a moment. He could see Bobby’s point. “But, I mean,” Ryan said, “I just assumed the cops or whatever would take care of this after we caught the bad guys.” He looked again at the Team for support. “I mean, that
is
normal, isn’t it?”

“Sure is,” Grant said. “But ‘normal’ isn’t normal anymore.” He let that sink in. “There are no courts; they haven’t been open for two weeks, man. I know because I go to court for a living and they’ve been closed. I’ve seen the ‘closed’ sign on the door with my own eyes. And that ain’t changin’ too soon.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said, realizing that the real courts were, indeed, closed, “but we can’t just have a trial. I know you said at the Grange that you’d be the judge and everything, but…really? We’re going to have a trial? For real?”

“For real,” Grant said. The Team – and, importantly, Rich – nodded.

“We have no choice, Ryan,” Rich said. “Hey, I hear you about how weird it is to have a ‘trial’ without going to the courthouse, but that’s all we’ve got. The list of weird things going on is much longer than just this. Like the fact that there are no longer fifty states.” Rich had heard this late-breaking news earlier that day. Apparently, several states had withdrawn their delegations from Congress.

“OK,” Ryan said, “I get that things are weird now, but can we even have a ‘trial’ of our own out here?”

“Yep,” Grant said. “We have more than enough evidence.”

“We’re not going to have all the bullshit of the past, with technicalities and criminals going free, are we?” Ryan asked.

“Don’t worry, Ryan, this won’t be an ACLU trial,” Grant continued. “We pick a jury. We have the bad guys tell their story, or stay silent if that’s what they want. Witnesses, including us, tell what we saw. The jury listens and decides. We carry out the sentence that day. Maybe an hour, tops, for this trial. Cases where the suspects might actually be innocent could take much longer. But not this one.”

Not wanting a long discussion of trial procedure, Rich decided to end the conversation. “We need to get the body out of here,” he said, motioning back to the house, “and we should get Josie and Frankie to the clinic. Brittany and Ronnie will go to the jail. I think the jail by the Grange is ready, or close to it. We’ll find out.” Rich hadn’t expected to need a jail this soon.

“When all that’s done,” Grant said, “let’s get people in here to reclaim their stuff. Anything not claimed will be used by the community. Kind of a free garage sale. But, we’ll have to burn lots of stuff. They cooked meth here. This house is not habitable.”

“Hey,” Bobby said, “we can use the house for training. Getting our communications down. Getting that rhythm down where we know what each other will do next.” That was a good idea. The house was too toxic to live in, but probably OK to be in for a few hours a week.

There was nothing else for them to talk about. Besides, it was starting to get dark. It was time to go home. All the killing, violence, and horror was over for today. But Grant still had the worst part of the day ahead of him. Grant thought about how Lisa would react to the news of this operation. He had just risked his life to protect everyone. He was pretty sure he knew what he could expect from her. He was afraid he would be going back to a pissed off Lisa. Great. A pissed off wife. Nothing was easy anymore.

Chapter 143

Enough of the “Could Have Lost Hims”

(May 14)

Lisa was in the clinic after the Grange meeting and during the raid. She was afraid for Grant. Why did he have to go do this? He was in his forties and was the judge, after all. He had a job out there. Being a judge and organizing things. That was important. Weren’t there some young guys who could do the gun stuff?

She had almost lost him once when he left for the cabin without her and the kids. She could lose him at any time because he was wanted by the authorities. She could have lost him when the Team rushed the parked semi-truck. She could have lost him when the big attack was supposed to come, but didn’t. And this had all been in the past few days. She’d had enough of the “could have lost” hims.

Why did he have to go and do all this? She couldn’t stop this question from running through her mind. No one else was volunteering to be shot at like her adrenaline-junkie husband. Everyone else had normal husbands who were trying to survive and take care of their families; they were not running around playing Army.

Lisa could hear the CBs in the clinic. Around dinnertime, the report came in on the radio that there was one dead male at the Richardson house. She knew it was Grant. He was dead. It had finally caught up with him. All this running around with guns.

She was so scared of living without him, out there, in the sticks with hillbillies. Without any stores open. It would be hell without him. At least the kids were old enough to have known him. They’d be heartbroken.

But it wasn’t just the kids she was thinking of; she was thinking of herself. She wanted him around for…well, until they got old together. Just like she’d always imagined. They’d have a normal – and long – life. They’d share all their ups and downs together and have grandkids and maybe even great-grandkids, and enjoy them together. She’d been thinking about this since college. It was how her life was supposed to be. And it required Grant to be part of it. Her life wouldn’t work without him.

Grant was putting all of that at risk with this gun fighting stuff. Why was he doing that? He didn’t need to be a gunfighter with his little buddies. He needed to be a father to his kids and a husband who Lisa could grow old with.

Everyone was glued to the CBs for news. After about a half hour—the longest half hour ever for Lisa—came the news that the dead and wounded were all occupants of the drug house.

What a relief, Lisa thought. She had been prepared for the worst and it didn’t happen…this time. Now her fear and dread turned to anger. Damn you, Grant. What kind of asshole runs into a house full of criminals?

It took about two hours for the constables to come back to the Grange. It was a long two hours. Lisa rehearsed over and over what she’d say to him. She’d had it with this running around with guns shit. No more. It was the guns or her. That should be an easy choice. She would never have another few hours like this, waiting to see if the dead man was her husband. No more.

Grant came into the Grange. She was going to let him have it.

He saw Lisa and knew what was coming. Oh well. Part of the price of being a sheepdog is that some of the sheep don’t understand that you’re protecting them. But this sheepdog stuff was hurting his marriage. Maybe it was time to hang this up and let the young—and single—guys do it.

When Lisa saw Grant, she was overwhelmed with relief. Despite her best intentions, she couldn’t be mad at him any longer. She was just so glad to see him. She realized she was simultaneously furious at him and so glad to see him. She ran up to him, hugged him, and started crying right in front of everyone. She whispered to him in a shaking voice, “Don’t do this again! I thought you were dead. Please don’t do this again!”

Grant didn’t say a word. He wanted to say, “OK, I’m done.” But he couldn’t. For all he knew, in an hour there would be an attack at the gate, or a boatload of criminals landing on the beach. Or another tweaker house. Or someone off their meds attacking a neighbor. Grant knew that this wasn’t time for a logical explanation to Lisa about why he needed to do all this gun stuff or why he was one of only a handful of semi-trained gunfighters at Pierce Point and how they needed each and every one.

“I’m home, honey,” Grant said. That’s all he could think to say. “Don’t worry,” he continued, thinking that sounded like a pretty good thing to say. “It wasn’t even close. I didn’t get a scratch. We overpowered them. It wasn’t even close. It wasn’t even close,” Grant kept repeating that to her to calm her down. She was sobbing in his arms in front of everyone. Grant felt very uncomfortable.

“Let’s go home,” he said. She nodded, her head brushing up and down on his chest. She was a foot shorter than him.

“Home” sounded so good. They could go home because he didn’t get killed. Lisa kept hugging him. She didn’t want to let him go.

People were leaving them alone. Everyone else was coming up to Rich and the rest of the Team and congratulating them. After a few minutes, someone said a truck was ready to take them back to their cabins.

The Team went out to Mark’s truck. He let Grant and Lisa ride in the rear cab together. They noticed that Grant was focusing on Lisa instead of them. This was their victory time, but Grant didn’t want to be part of it. He wanted to be with Lisa. It was like when one guy in a group gets a girlfriend. The group feels left out, like the guy will be ditching them soon for the girl.

When they first got in the truck, Mark wanted to hear the story of the raid firsthand from Grant. He could see Grant didn’t want to talk. It was hug time, so Mark didn’t say a word all the way home.

During the ride, Grant thought how good it felt to be with Lisa. It reminded him of back in college when they could finally be together on a Saturday night date after working hard at school all week. He was reminded of how holding her felt back then. It was a treat he earned and savored. The truck ride felt like that.

They drove onto Over Road. His cabin looked fabulous in the twilight. – not for any particular reason, just that he was home and safe. He wanted to hug the kids and sleep in his bed. He didn’t want to leave the house. He wanted to be a normal husband and father for a while. Let the twenty-year olds save the day. This old guy had done his duty.

When he walked into the cabin, Drew and Eileen came down from the loft and said hi. They had no idea about the raid.

Manda said casually, “Oh, hey, Dad. What’s up?” She didn’t know about the raid, either. Thank God. She could just be a kid for a while longer. Well, at sixteen, a young adult.

Cole came running up and said, “Hi, Dad. How was your day?”

“Great talkin’, little buddy,” Grant said to Cole. They had been working on getting him to say social things to people to start a conversation. Cole wanted to talk to people; it was just hard for him.

“So, how was your day?” Cole asked again. Grant had never heard him say that sentence before. It was one of the best things in the world, hearing a new sentence from Cole.

“Oh, it was fine,” Grant said and looked at Lisa. “A little stressful, but it turned out OK,” he said, as nonchalantly as possible.

“Good, Dad. I had a good day,” Cole said.

“What did you do today?” Grant asked. This was part of the asking social questions thing they did with Cole.

“I helped Manda clean up the house and I went down to the beach with her and Missy. We picked up some oysters. They’re a shellfish and live in the ocean. They have pearls in them. Some of them. We brought them back and Grandma cooked them on the barbeque. They tasted weird. I had spaghetti for lunch. Then we helped Mrs. Morrell with some plants and made jars of food in her kitchen. Then I read some books to Sissy. We helped Grandma with dinner. We made biscuits and brought them to the Colson’s where we had a dinner with everyone. I’m tired.”

Grant was stunned. That was the best talking he’d ever heard from Cole. Being out there without the bustle of their old suburban daily life was helping him relax and learn. He got to spend all day with his sister and grandparents, which was good for him, too.

“Awesome, little buddy,” was all Grant could say. Lisa was sniffling after hearing all of Cole’s good talking. It was happy crying.

“Are you OK, Mom?” Cole asked, as he came over to hug her.

Lisa broke down crying as all the pent up emotions from that evening came pouring out.

“Yes, honey,” Lisa said, “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m with all of you,” she said in between sobs. She looked at Grant as if to say, “This is where you belong.” Grant looked at her and nodded.

This might be the end of my gun fighting, Grant thought. He felt like this—in the cabin and with his family—was where he belonged.

Chapter 144

Outside the Walls of Camp Murray…

(June 1, year one of the Collapse)

Jeanie Thompson was being watched. She could feel it. She was in prison. Well, a prison of sorts. Most people in the state would die to have it as good as she did there at Camp Murray; totally secure, completely supplied with luxuries, and surrounded by all the important people.

But, it was a prison for her. She couldn’t leave. Theoretically, she could resign and leave the protection of Camp Murray, which had become the acting state capitol behind the protection of a massive Army base. However, she was dead if she left. Who would want to leave Camp Murray and enter the chaos and deprivation outside the barbed wire and machine gun nests?

She had been on the state’s elite political communications team, and had been a key advisor to the State Auditor, who was apparently going to be the next governor. She had been getting briefings on the most sensitive topics and been giving interviews to the media. Jeanie was an insider.

All of this was even more amazing given that Jeanie was a Republican in this thoroughly liberal state government. But, she had told herself, she was exceptionally good at her job and the government was fair and didn’t have any political litmus test.